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TALBOT family, of Margam Abbey and Penrice Castle , Glam . It was by marriage with a Mansel of Margam — see Mansel family of Margam and Penrice — that a member of the Wiltshire family of Talbot became connected with Glamorgan. This was JOHN IVORY TALBOT, of Lacock Abbey, who m. MARY MANSEL, daughter of Thomas Mansel (d. 1723), 1st baron Mansel. THOMAS TALBOT, cleric, son of this marriage, became eventually, through his mother, and on the death (1750) of his mother's brother, Bussy, 4th baron Mansel, heir to the Margam and Penrice estates. Thomas Talbot's son, by his wife Jane, daughter of Thomas Beach, was THOMAS MANSEL TALBOT (1747-1813) who m. lady Lucy Fox Strangways, daughter of Henry, 2nd earl of Ilchester, and by her was the father of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (below).

There are numerous references to John Ivory Talbot, Thomas Talbot, Thomas Mansel Talbot, and Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot in the Margam and Penrice muniments in N.L.W.; see also the manuscripts of John Montgomery Traherne (q.v.) (brother-in-law of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot) which are in N.L.W. For example, there are echoes of Thomas Mansel Talbot' industrial interests in N.L.W. MS. 6582. Letters which C. R. M. Talbot sent to Traherne are in N.L.W. MSS. 6599-6600; see also Margam and Penrice documents 9237-45, and consult the N.L.W. schedule of the Margam and Penrice letters.

Of the four Talbots named above it was probably

CHRISTOPHER RICE MANSEL TALBOT (1803-1890) who played the most prominent part in the life of Glamorgan. He was b. 10 May 1803 at Penrice Castle, the son of Thomas Mansel Talbot and the lady Lucy Fox Strangways, named above. He was educated at Harrow and Oriel College, Oxford (B.A. 1824, with 1st class honours in mathematics). He inherited the estates in 1824 and m., 28 Dec. 1835, lady Charlotte Butler (d. 1846), daughter of Richard, 1st earl of Glengall. He represented Glamorgan in Parliament for a very long period — from 1830 until he d. in 1890; from 1874 he was the ‘Father of the House of Commons.’ First elected in 1830 to succeed his step-father, Sir Christopher Cole (d. 1836), his mother's second husband (for some of Cole's Glamorgan election experiences see N.L.W. MSS. 6575-6), he was re-elected at every subsequent poll — 1831, 1832, 1835, 1837, 1841, 1847, 1852, 1857, 1859, 1865, 1868, 1874, 1880; in the election of 1885 he was chosen to represent the new constituency of Mid-Glamorgan, being reelected in 1886. He was appointed lord lieutenant of Glamorgan in 1848. He was F.R.S.

C. R. M. Talbot d. 17 Jan. 1890, leaving two unmarried daughters — OLIVIA EMMA TALBOT (d. 1894) and EMILY CHARLOTTE TALBOT (d. 1918), and BERTHA TALBOT, who married John Fletcher, Saltoun Hall, Haddingtonshire, Scotland. The sisters were generous supporters of many institutions and causes in Glamorgan, particularly churches; it was Emily Talbot who arranged for Walter de Gray Birch, of the British Museum, to arrange and catalogue, in six printed volumes, the greater part of the Margam and Penrice muniments (now in N.L.W.). Their brother, THEODORE MANSEL TALBOT, had pre-deceased his father.

Bibliography:

To the sources already named add N.L.W. MS. 6551;
W. R. Williams, Parl. Hist.;
Nicholas;
C. A. Maunsell and E. P. Statham, Hist. of the Family of Maunsell.

Author:

Sir William Llewelyn Davies, M.A., LL.D., F.S.A. (1887-1952), Aberystwyth